Sermon Tone Analysis

*Glorifying God by Making Disciples of the Resurrected Lord - Matthew 28*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on March 23, 2008/

/ /

When the Protestant Reformation swept across Catholic Europe nearly 500 years ago, there were five distinct truths in particular that summarized their movement back to God’s Word:

-         /sola scriptura /(Scripture alone is our sole authority)

-         /sola gratia /(grace alone from God, only way of salvation)

-         /sola fide /(faith alone receives this grace, not human works)

-         /solo Christo /(Christ alone and His righteousness saves)

-         /soli deo Gloria /(to God alone be the glory)

/ /

The Scriptures say that God’s *glory* shines most brightly in the face of Jesus Christ.

John 1 says when God’s Son became flesh and dwelt among us we beheld *His glory, the glory* of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth.

When Christ was born, the angels proclaimed to shepherds “*Glory to God in the highest.*”

In John 17:4 Jesus summed up the work the Father gave Him to do as “*glorifying God on the earth*.”

And Phil. 2 says that the resurrection of Christ *ultimately was for and about God’s glory*.

After He was obedient to death on a cross:

9 … God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, *to the glory of God the Father.*

Every knee must bow to Jesus as Lord /for the ultimate purpose of *glorifying God* the Father/.

The glory or honor of God is the crucial issue – any of you in this room who haven’t turned from your sin and bowed to Christ’s Lordship are /dishonoring/ God, and not only will you live an empty and unfulfilled life here on earth by missing the purpose for your existence (to glorify God) but far worse, for all eternity you will be separated from this glorious and infinitely satisfying and joyful presence of God in heaven.

Those who do not *honor or glorify God* are the ones who will receive the wrath of God according to Romans 1:21 and following.

Romans 3:23 (which was read earlier) says our fundamental problem is we all have sinned and fallen short of *the glory* of God.

*God’s glory is the central issue.*

Whether you believe in it or not, hell is a place of continual conscious punishment and pain for all who will not *glorify God* by surrendering their life in faith to Jesus, who described Himself as the way, the truth, and the life, and He said no one gets to God the Father except through Christ.

Whether you agree or not, that’s what God says in His Word.

Romans 6:4 says this about the resurrection: “Christ was raised from the dead through the *glory* of the Father” – the resurrection is all about the glory of God, /that’s/ what Easter Sunday is all about.

The resurrection of Christ the Lord was not only the most glorious event in history, but as we’ll see in Matt.

28, for those who have responded rightly in faith to Christ’s resurrection there is a glorious future as well as a glorious present calling His true disciples have.

Matthew 28:1-4 (NASB95) \\ 1 Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first /day /of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. 2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

3 And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

4 The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men.

*4 RESPONSES TO THE RESURRECTION*

#. *Deathly Afraid, v. 2-4*

 

Seeing a dead man come from the tomb like Lazarus was a fearful enough sight by itself.

But in verse 2 of this chapter an angel comes to show there is no dead person in this tomb!

He’s gone!

Sometime earlier, Jesus rose from the grave in victory and exited the tomb that could not hold him, probably by going right through its walls.

The gospels indicate His glorified resurrected body was able to pass through walls like He did in appearing later to the disciples in a closed room.

This angel does not roll away the stone to let Jesus out, it’s to show that Jesus is not there!

/Read verse 6./

/ /

Roman soldiers were accustomed to seeing many things, but nothing like this had ever even been heard of.

Along with it, verse 2 says there was a tremendous earthquake that the English translations describe as “great” (NKJV), “severe” (NAS, NET), “strong” (CEV), “powerful” (ISV), “violent” (NIV, HCSB).

The Greek words “mega” and “seismos” are even recognizable in English, this was a mega seismic activity as v. 2 says.

This angel breaks the seal and rolls the stone away and takes a seat on it.

Vs. 3 says the angel’s clothes were white as snow, his appearance was like lightning – this is a blinding brilliant white light, similar to the glory of Christ that the disciples saw in his Transfiguration.

Verse 4 says “the guards shook for fear” and it’s the same root word as the seismic shaking in verse 2. There is a great fear at this scene, in fact if you’d been there it would have been hard to tell who was shaking more, the soldiers or the earth!

The end of the verse says they became as dead men, which for the moment they probably were sure they were.

Being deathly afraid in light of visible glory and the mighty power of the Lord is a normal human reaction, but it is not enough by itself.

Even to tremble before God does not necessarily save us.

Judas trembled in light of what he had done in betraying Jesus, but his actions in committing suicide showed he had never been a true disciple with true faith.

The Bible says if you believe in God, “you do well.

The demons also believe and tremble.

But are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow that faith without works is useless?” (Jas 2:19-20)

 

James argues that no matter what you /say/ about your faith, if there’s no works or fruit or evidence now of someone who loves the Lord and follows him, that so-called “faith” you have may be dead, useless, it won’t save you.

We are saved by faith alone, yes, but not by a professed faith that is alone; no fruit of the spirit, no walking in God’s ways, no heart for God’s things, no following of Christ.

A mere said faith is a dead faith, just believing facts is what demons do, not disciples.

James says even demons do better than you, at least what they believe about God affects them, makes them tremble.

If you don’t even fear God, then you of all people should be afraid, be very afraid until you have made peace with Christ.

/So the first response to the Resurrection events was the soldiers being deathly afraid.

We’ll come back to the women at the tomb, but let’s follow the soldiers to see a 2nd response by unbelievers:/

#. *Denying the Truth, v. 11-15*

11 Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

12 And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’

14 “And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.”

15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, /and is /to this day.

* *

The Jewish leaders were also fearful but in another way.

In chapter 27, the chief Priests and Pharisees asked Pontius Pilate to seal and guard the tomb because they remembered that Jesus said he would rise again on the third day.

They asked for soldiers saying that Christ’s disciples might come and steal the body away.

But I think James Boice is right when he says what they /really feared most of all was that Jesus would in fact rise from the dead/.

They could have had the soldiers arrest the disciples, and certainly guarding the tomb would have been enough, but they also had it /sealed/ probably to make sure that Jesus couldn’t get out from the inside.

They had seen His miracles.

None of them could deny them.

In fact, the Jews had seen Jesus raise a man who had been in the tomb for four days, and if you would think anything would cause these leaders to believe Jesus was their Messiah, it would be /that miracle/!

But John 11 records that these same leaders when they heard it, they immediately formed a council in light of Christ raising Lazarus and they planned together to murder Jesus (v.

53).

And this is amazing, in our passage here, when the soldiers report what happened, you might think surely Christ’s resurrection itself would prove to them that Jesus was the Son of God.

Surely now they will fall on their faces and say “we were wrong, we see the truth, Jesus must be the Son of God” (that’s what even one Roman soldier said watching Jesus die in Matthew 27).

But what does verse 12 say they did?

They meet again and all agree to deny what has happened and to give what had to be a massive sum of money to buy off the soldiers to not tell the truth!

These Pharisees loved their money.

The gospels say they wouldn’t support their own parents, they would extort money from widows and the poor all in the name of God.

But they were willing to give from this precious money (which should have been the Lord’s) to pay Judas the betrayer of our Lord.

Here they give a far larger sum of money to these soldiers to make sure they suppress the truth.

They didn’t disbelieve the soldiers’ story, they bribe them to deny it and they went to desperate measures because their greatest fears were realized.

Nothing was more fearful than that this Jesus who had often unraveled and uncovered their false religion and exposed them for the hypocrites and phonies they were, nothing was more frightening than Christ exposing their sin and pride and the fact that He was alive!

I pray that this morning the Lord is unraveling and uncovering any false beliefs you have and exposing any hypocrisy and sin in your heart, and I pray with sincere compassion that you will not respond like these Pharisees but that you recognize Jesus is your Lord and only hope.

He can forgive any sin, He will shower His grace and mercy on any sinner if you come humbly admitting your sin and trusting in Christ alone, in His death and resurrection on your behalf.

Romans 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus /as /Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

This is good news.

The bad news is if you do not respond, if you see the truth so clearly and do not bow your life before the Lordship of Christ, you may become as hardened as these sinful Pharisees.

Mark it down: People do not disbelieve the gospel because it is intellectually unbelievable, but because they’re morally unwilling.

It’s not a mental barrier, it’s a moral barrier.

It’s a sin problem, called depravity.

This is the deceitfulness and desperate nature of man’s sin.

In verse 13, they have the soliders say “we were asleep when the disciples came and stole him.”

Any rational man would say to that, “wait a minute, you mean all 12 or so of you highly trained soldiers who know that sleeping on the job or failing can mean death or serious consequences, all of you were asleep while the disciples had to break the seal of concrete and roll away a massive stone and none of you heard a thing?”

The even more obvious question is “how do you know what happened if you were asleep?!”

 

These religious people tried to deny the truth, but they couldn’t.

You cannot deny the truth, dear friend here this morning.

You cannot run or hide from the all-knowing and all-seeing God.

You might be able to fool some of us here at church by acting like a Christian outwardly when you’re not one inwardly, but God sees right through that.

And His gentle grace and compassion are extended to you this morning to come to Him on His terms, not with your accomplishments but only with what Christ has accomplished.

You are hearing the truth, you know the truth, don’t harden your heart.

Romans 1 says that all men know certain truths about God deep down inside, but that instead of glorifying God, men suppress the truth in sin or unrighteousness, and what Israel’s leadership does here is representative of what all us sinners do.